Workshop Diary #2

At the end of yesterday’s session Rod Cooper pulled out one of his home-made guitars and ran through his songbook of desperate-man Melbourne blues. Very entertaining and suitably desperate.

However as I write this he’s returned to his more usual practise of generating deep growling drones by attacking his amplified string instruments with small metal motors. More on this later.

Asep Nata has been outside much of the day blowing on a tuning device in order to correctly pitch sheets of steel to an unknown scale. Really looking forward to finding out how these ‘tuned sheets’ will be utilised. Asep has also successfully ‘tuned’ a collection of broken floor tiles for future use.

We had an impromptu visit from a number of art students from Michigan University who are here collaborating with the great Jogja printing collective Taring Padi. They were pretty fascinated with the Instrument Builders Project and the openness of our studio process.

Micael Candy built a little box today that sets off an alarm when it reaches a tempurature of 100 degrees celsius. He’s planning to take it to Merapi volcano tomorrow to see if he can find a spot hot enough to set it off. Volcanoes have been known to reach that temperature.

Over by the studio entrance, Dylan and Wukir’s plough-frame assemblage continues to evolve with the addition of amplified beer cans (san miguel no less) that connect electronic circuits when struck by a robotic drum stick attached to a rock. Super hi-tech trash inventions happening here. Ingenious.

The whole workshop is beginning to amplify as more of the artists experiment with microphones and other ‘loud’ signals. Just as sounds are bouncing around the studio space, ideas and strategies are starting to cross-pollinate as the collaborative nature of the workshop evolves. Renowned local vocalist and IBP translater Rully Shabara has been in today jamming on some on a custom guitar built by Wukir Suryadi

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We’re about to have a series of artist presentations, which should move that process forward a bit.